Note: This is a repost unearthed from the dead carcass of our old site, which met an untimely demise in the few remaining hours of New Year’s Eve, 2024 (RIP). In having a focus on different locales and nations each week on Musolegion, as an admin I decided to forgo the usual From The Legion method of pooling queries from across the community, instead focusing on Finland to showcase the merits of this fine producer of all things heavy, alternative and Scandinavian.

Read on, and be sure to keep up with both ISC and Musolegion via relevant links above/bottom of this article. I encourage joining the Musolegion community if you’d like to be part of an active, inclusive, respectful and passionate bunch of alternative music aficionados from around the globe!

Peace, Love and Finnish Grindcore xoxo - Brady.

Y'know, like any good metalhead, I've got an appreciation for the edgier side of more whimsical celebrations such as Christmas. Thus, instead of pastiching together Musikkimaaanantai ja Tekninin Tiistai with a whole bunch of Coca-Cola inspired red and white, I figured it's a cool time to utilise IRL lore to send off our last weekly segments for the year.

What Westerners Like Me Think When They Think of Finland:

*'Jarno! Jarno, you're on fire!'*
*'aaaaaaaaaaaah Satana Perkele!'*

and of course, the finer points of Suomi cuisine, such as a hearty Blorö breakfast:

*Source: @shittyfoodblog on IG. Which in this case I think is a misnomer - who wouldn’t want to kick their day off with two stimulants and a shot? Srsly.*

As for me… well. As an incurable post-metal and sludge stan, just about any time I hear the word 'Finland' I get strong evocation of these Swedes and their incredible track of the same name.

Derived from one of my favourite albums, ever, but not actually from Finland itself:

But hey - I already had my turn at goofing off about Sweden in yesterday's podcast review (Spotify / Youtube/ Blog links here), now it's Suomilainen time.

THE SUOMI SCENE:

Common Village-Dwellers:

Artists most available to the global collective consciousness when it comes to Finnish bands often include the following, among others: HIM, Amorphis, Sentenced, Wolfheart, Demigod, Children of Bodom (RIP Laiho), Wintersun 2: Electric Sauna Kickstarter Boogaloo, Impaled Nazerene (yes, they're Finnish!), Swallow The Sun, Nightwish, Sonata Arctica, Sarcofagus, Beherit, Waltari, Tarot, Peer Gunt, Moonsorrow, Stratovarius, Hanoi Rocks, Oranssi Pazuzu, Convulse, Rotten Sound, Stam1na, Demilich, Kalmah, Insomnium, Von Hertzen Brothers, Funebre, Eternal Tears of Sorrow, Lordi, Hevisaurus, Havukruunu, Paara, and of COURSE - Finntroll.

And of course, one of the best doom bands ever in the now sadly-defunct Reverend Bizarre:

Finland often gets attached to pretty vague, folk/power/doom metal tropes in my mind. And hey, I'm sure there's several bands from the more prescient list above that you've not heard of. As well as others you may have construed as originating elsewhere, right? Be honest. Heck, I totally forgot about IN and Beherit are both from from the land of beer and My Summer Car.

A lot of the musical tones in that list swing wildly; from whimsical Bal-Sagoth levels of cheese my body can't endure, down to the grimiest and grittiest.

Oh, but the trails to the sparsely populated nation lead to even brighter glimmers and darker caverns, friends. Go search up some of the above, and you'll see even what is more squarely in the public heavy lexicon offers a vast palette of moods and tones. And that’s completely discounting the myriad of musical options that abound in this heavily-forested northern clime!

Perhaps that's got something to do with their seasonal patterns. I'd be prone to making very out-there music in different directions… if the thing that's meant to provide me consistent 24hr cycles for a proper diurnal resting cycle had a severe case of Type I Bipolar Disorder. Seriously, how they manage such a flippant night-day mockery by that orb of light is well beyond me.

Making great music is always an effective coping strategy, though, and one this nation employs well.

Musical Suomi's Not Spotted Until You Broach The Forest Periphery

This friendly little forest critter is either a) a crust-punk thrasher similar to myself in appearance/behaviour, or b) Hiisi, an aptly-named cave/gorge-dwelling creature. One who, like myself, is generally considered a pest and lives on the fringes of human habitation at best.
*Props to* ***This is Finland****, who’ve provided a cool little breakdown of similar creatures in the Suomi folklore canon, along with similarly-cool artworks.*
*Go check the exploration of Finnish mythical creatures further* ***at this link****, if interested!*

I'll take a second to once again apologise to my Finnish contingent (of which we have a fairly sizeable base, over at Musolegion!) in acknowledging a number of these may be more common-knowledge within your collective conscious.

I thought I'd spread my Skoda's doors a bit wider, though, and veer off the beaten path, blasting some suomisandi (unironically awesome, like all cheesy Eurotech!) with sausages in hand.

Let's crack on and head off past the more visible internet tree-line.

For starters, Tuonel Magazine has an impressively wide spread of artists to check out from 2024. Likewise, Music Finland had a wide-reaching spread of recommendations for fall and winter this year.

Examples from the former range from the blow-up of metallers Bloodred Hourglass (see here for single 'How's The Heart'), Vorna's folk-infused atmospheric black (see here for 'Valo' official lyric video), Finnish metalcore in Balance Breach ('Heart like Siberia' clip here) the experimental gothic-pop of Grave Pleasures (butt-shaking link to 'Heart Like A Slaughterhouse right here), there's a wide charcuterie available from the Soumi deli link above.

From the latter article, things broaden further out above the incessantly-nocturnal winter skyline.

Take for instance, the swing from mentions of Venla Ilona Blom's beatbox genre-fusion in album NEVRAK (released Sept 20th), Enemies Everywhere's deathcore slammer Endless Discord EP (released Sept 13th), Lampen's experimental post-Jazz release Halogen (released Sept 20th) to the post-hardcore/screamo split courtesy of MoshiMoshi and Alas (released Sept 27th).

Do me a favour, global friends, and please check the original links to support homegrown music journalism from our Scandinavian friends!

Now. In order to not be sitting here writing this piece until long after the stockings have been empty tomorrow on Xmas Day, I'll simply provide some by-genre album lists as recommended across the Suomi metal spectrum.

Let's have a crack at some Finnish death metal, first:
(DISCLAIMER: Leaving out death-doom as again, time is money, and it's Christmas lol):

Thanks to Musolegion Admin Sammy for providing this fantastic link for some of the above - and many thanks to Gonilic for the fun breakdown. Go check the rest of his channel out! Some fun content to be consumed.

Per the above video and noted in Farvann's guide to creating Finn-style black metal, the genre has a decidedly more amorphous (pun intended?) osmotic relationship with the death metal scene. Which is wholly unsurprising given both the country's geography, and the primacy of death-doom, doom and other extreme metal genres.

Once more - I could generate a bunch of these, but I haven't got all week.

In saying that, though - I did have time to cultivate my own absolutely-must-listen infographic of the Finnish DM I found particularly commendable:

Some delectable slices from this Finnish delicatessen of death metal:

Blackened Suomilainen:

*Note: Some black-metal nerds may feel remiss at my omission of obvious choices like* ***Sargeist*** *and* ***Satanic Warmaster****, but if you’re in the know, you’ll understand why those have been omitted for now. Plus, more room for bands folks might not know!*
On the other side of the black metal discursive spectrum? No, I didn't sit here and painstakingly piece apart on the Radical Antifascist Black Metal subreddit whether each band is 'safe' to post. I’m just out here postin’ some black metal.

Choice cuts from this album list, in my humble opinion:

Finally - Up The Finnish Punx and Their Dirty Grindcore Colleagues:

Some nourishing slices of after-dinner Finnish grindcore and punk/hardcore fruit, #ForYourHealth:

High-Five Krampus and Hail Saatana: Tekninen Tiistai

I'm... legitimately so exhausted. There's so much good stuff everywhere in this damn country. Damn you, Krampus!

Okay. Look, to simplify and have less eyesore lists that took hours to compile, I'll preface Technical Tuesday with a few Finnish greats by way of Youtube links.

Suffice to day, Finnish sub-genres could easily be entire episodes on this podcast at a minimum. I feel woozier than post-Xmas family lunch. You guys are nuts. SO much good music, by Saatana!

e.g.;

Techy Melodeath? Gotcha:

Overlooked Early Tech-Death from Finland? Kyllä kiitos:

Brutal death metal with a strong tech-death and melodeath flair in the mix? Too easy, mate!

Amoral, because they kick ass, that’s why:

Finally, to close this out, I’m just going reiterate - listen to Demilich. All hail Nespithe! Praise the HypnoToad godfathers of the disso-death that is only just now catching up to their infernal wizardy 3 decades later.

To The MusoLegion:

No community post this week. I just want to reiterate my fantastic buddies in the Musolegion Admin Team and to our dear Legion of community members - have a wonderful and Merry Metal Christmas!

Hope everyone from the Legion to abroad has a wonderful Christmas, and Happy Holidays.

I leave you with a nice, soft, melodic, family-friendly Xmas album. Completely free of sarcasm.

Peace, Love and Grindcore In Your Stockings - Brady.